Lute or Uke? What is it?

Don't spend any time listening to Baritone uke's but from my very limited experience and listening to the sound sample on reverb I'd say Lute......

The description of the instrument goes on to say that Roosebeck does the Baroq-ulele in the 4 common uke sizes. I suppose scale and string arrangement would produce ukulele music.
 
I dunno, but what difference does it make? It’s really nice lookin’, and, if it sounds good, it would be a nice addition to a ukist’s collection. At least for a wall hanger and occasional player. It needs some ribbons to hang from the peghead though.

Its price may be a bit steep for that, but, what the heck . . . :eek:ld:
 
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Pretty much anything can be a ukulele, so you can't really go wrong calling it a ukulele.
 
I'd say it looks like a PITA-to-keep-on-your-lap-without-a-strap-ulele
 
I've seen those ukes on eBay often. I consider it a uke because of the tuning, not the style, calling it a Baroq-ulele works for me. I had a uke made that looks like a mandolin (mandolele), but is definitely a uke.


8 tenor cutaway ukes, 5 acoustic bass ukes, 10 solid body bass ukes, 7 mini electric bass guitars

• Donate to The Ukulele Kids Club, they provide ukuleles to children's hospital music therapy programs. www.theukc.org
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So what is a lute and what is a ukulele? I would answer the question with this question.
There is no doubt that there is some marketing in the choice of product name, taking advantage of the current popularity of ukuleles. But there is more to it.

The bowl back uses an entirely different production process to the figure 8 shape. Looking at the pictures, the instrument has metal frets where usually the lutes have gut or nylon frets. The tuning is also different. Find some videos of lute making and uke making and see the differences. I think you might find that the bowl back shape can make the instrument much louder and more able to accompany instruments like guitars.

For an exercise look up the popular lute tunings, there are one or two which are very easy to set up on your GCEA or DGBE ukulele. One of them only requires a half step change to one string.

A major difference between lute and ukulele is the players. Lute players are happy to pay for a good instrument, they will even lease a student instrument to take classes. How many ukulele players would do that? The lute players also take to learning about music and how to play the instrument a lot more seriously and even learn stuff like reading music and Lute TAB. Of course some of these things are much easier if you have 400 years or more of history to help you out. Ukulele players are lot less tied up in history and protocol and sticking to traditions. Both approaches have their advantages.

Using another instrument, which is the right mandolin, the one used by Bill Monroe, or the bowl back one used by Italians?
What I like about the instrument in the photos is that it is about 21 Century musical instrument fusion. Whoever made it and came with the product name and concept is not happy sitting around playing 400 year old music, they are trying to innovate and fuse instruments to create something new. In the mid-20th century electric instruments were fine tuned and we had an explosion of popular music. Not much has happened since, the instruments are still based around designs from the 1960s. Maybe a lute - ukulele fusion can lead to something completely new for the 21st Century?

Since you have read this much waffle, why not take another 30 minutes to find some lute music and see if you can tune your uke to have a go at playing it?

And I thought I had a lot of time on my hands. Good dissertation, you must have done well in essay class.


8 tenor cutaway ukes, 5 acoustic bass ukes, 10 solid body bass ukes, 7 mini electric bass guitars

• Donate to The Ukulele Kids Club, they provide ukuleles to children's hospital music therapy programs. www.theukc.org
• Member The CC Strummers www.youtube.com/user/CCStrummers/video
 
It's an Ukulele that has some design inspiration from Lute.

What makes this an ukulele?

-Ukulele tuning (baritone in this case)
-Ukulele strings
-Ukulele scale and playability

Everything about it is Ukulele, except that its aesthetics feature are inspired by Lute's rustic look.
 
I fully agree with Kissing: This is an ukulele fashioned to look somewhat like a lute or other Renaissance instruments.
 
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